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At what point can Canadians no longer claim to be a democratic people? We widely recognize when other countries were running sham elections, but our closeness to our own has coloured perception of crimes here. Some don’t mind so much because the resulting government is the one they think they wanted, and others aren’t even aware of the trickery that changed the result. It seems so unlikely for our quiet, peaceful, democratic nation, and long standing champion of human rights (despite our long standing hypocritical treatment of Aboriginal people). Corruption in Canada? Certainly nothing that bad, we’re just not that improper, tut tut. Pass the Grey Poupon[, or another Pil].

Thwap thinks the time is near (or here) where we can’t claim to be a democracy. Acceptance of a situation creates a precedence, and collectively we’re choosing to accept that 566 days after an election tampered with by illegal robocalls and illegal live calls misdirecting voters away from legitimate polls, it’s normal for Elections Canada to have charged exactly 0 people with the crimes. The crimes were conducted on computers and telephones, with logs, passwords, and solid electronic-paper trails. If these crimes can’t be resolved with this sort of evidence, which ones can?

Today’s blog post deals with accepting the significance of the situation. It seems that it’s only in politics that we acquiesce to the most blatant cheating and criminality. We put up with all sorts of bullshit because we can’t fathom doing what is necessary to respond appropriately.Continue reading →

-Outlaw Snowy Bear and Jamie
It was a nice warm evening, and I got together with about 80 other of Regina’s finest people to make our voices (and our pots and pans) heard on 13th Ave. What started as a student protest in Quebec, has grown into a national protest against a draconian Charest government who has outlawed Constitutional Rights and Freedoms. Even if you don’t agree with the student’s demand for maintaining low tuition, you have to agree that laws that limit public gathering are no where near Canadian or acceptable in a free society. I hope many more than only 80 people attend the next in Regina, and the Charest government backs down, because Canadian citizens must not.

-Larry, and Marc in the background

-Walking down 13th Avenue

Music is in the ear of the pot-holder.

==

In sidewalk gossip, I heard that Connaught School has crumbling bricks, so the 100 year old building would cost $23M to fix, and a few million less to tear down and build something less historic and with a shorter planned life. Humans really went awry with some of our building techniques over the last 60 years or so, even putting asbestos into drinking water pipes that may fail at any time in many Regina neighbourhoods. A longer term vision is required than treating every building project as an emergency, and treating everything from the 1900s as passe or unfit for the future.

Roots Action is being formed to counter the sort of incestuous closeness between the Democratic Party and Net action groups like MoveOn.org. You won’t see MoveOn criticizing Obama or many democrats very hard when they make big mistakes, and you won’t see them promoting many progressive policies that aren’t already in the stated goals of the Democrats.

I make a similar claim against unions in Saskatchewan, and their support of specifically the New Democratic Party. A lot of this relationship comes from how trade unions were founded, and the CCF/NDP’s traditional support for trade unionism. People involved with unionism at an organizational level are more likely than not going to be supporters or even active participants in the NDP (based on my personal observations). There’s nothing improper with this, it just makes it harder for unions to get what they need when their cards are on the table, and they are in bed with those they may need to oppose.

In a democratic country, blindly supporting a single party unconditionally, will lead that party to abuse you. Look at the many recent examples in Saskatchewan. The Conservatives could run a turnip for MP, and get elected in Yorkton-Melville, because the majority of people there will unconditionally vote Conservative, even when abused by the Conservative government.

Unions being so tight with the NDP is really a double whammy on their bargaining powers. First, they are unable to legitimately threaten the NDP with removal of votes if the party doesn’t behave in a union-friendly manner. And second, being public supporters of a single party ostracizes members of other parties who sympathize with trade unionist goals. When union supporting voters become outnumbered, they’re unlikely to have many sympathizers within the ruling party (as we see today with the anti-union Sask Party in charge of the province, passing anti-union legislation).

If this isn’t enough of a smoking gun for you to understand what is going on in Wisconsin now, and why there are tens of thousands of people protesting, if not hundreds of thousands, then you need to watch this video again. Governor Walker is working for people in top hats and monocles, not the taxpayers of Wisconsin.

Micheal Moore happened to talk about this.
151,000,000 Americans’ wealth equals the assets of only 400 of the wealthiest Americans. How is that just?

About

Saskboy is a blogger, IT Professional, car share organizer, and cyclist who proudly lives in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Contact saskboy at his hotmail.com address.
You can access old archives through archive.org or at my older blogs.
Also #YQRvotes candidate for Ward 1
www.johnklein.ca